


Escape

by localspacelesbian



Category: Diary of a Future President (TV)
Genre: Angst, Father's Day, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of canon character death, Mild Language, Sad, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localspacelesbian/pseuds/localspacelesbian
Summary: It's almost Father's Day, and Bobby can't stop being reminded of his dad.
Relationships: Bobby Cañero-Reed & Liam Carter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Escape

_ “I was tired of my lady _

_ We'd been together too long _

_ Like a worn out recording _

_ Of a favorite song” _

Bobby froze as he recognized the song that was playing immediately. Danny’s garage seemed to fade away as he was thrown back in time to sitting in the backseat of his dad’s car. Instead of laughing with his friends at Ziggy’s attempts to flirt with Cassie, he was laughing with his sister at his dad’s attempts to sing along with the radio.

_ “If you like piña coladas _

_ And getting caught in the rain” _

But as quickly as the image appeared in his mind, it was gone. Replaced by Liam giving him a concerned look. Bobby gave him a small smile, even knowing it wouldn’t fool him. He set down his drink (was his hand shaking or was he imagining things?) and told Liam and Danny that he had to go to the bathroom. He left the party as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself.

When he got to the bathroom, he closed the door and put his hands on the counter to steady himself. His breathing was a little shaky and he was almost scared to look in the mirror.  _ Come on dude, get yourself together. It’s just a stupid fucking song. _ A song he hadn’t heard in nearly four years. (Had it already been four years? Had it  _ only _ been four years?)

It didn’t help that he’d been seeing reminders everywhere the past few weeks because of Father’s Day, so thoughts of his dad that he usually did a pretty good job ignoring had been pushed a little closer to the front of his mind. He’d managed to push them back down every time but not quite all the way, and now they were hitting him all at once. He sat down on the edge of the tub and ran his hands through his hair as he tried to breathe.  _ Come on _ . He could pull himself together and make it through one stupid party.

He heard a knock on the door, and his head snapped up. “Uh… there’s someone in here.”

“Bobby?” It was Liam.  _ Fuck. _

“Yeah?”

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine.” He didn’t think it sounded very believable.

“Can I come in?”

He didn’t answer.

After a couple seconds, the door opened anyway. Liam walked in and closed the door behind him.

“Hey man, are you ok?” He asked again.

And there really wasn’t any point in lying now, was there? He shook his head.

Liam sat down next to him. “What happened?”

Bobby shook his head again. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

Bobby looked at Liam. He still looked worried. About him. Bobby didn’t know why it was so easy to talk to Liam about this stuff. He never talked to anyone about his dad. Not even his mom and sister. He usually tried not to even think about it. But when Liam asked the words just came out. He sighed and looked back down. “It’s that dumb song.”

“What, the Piña Colada song?”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah. My dad used to really like it. He put it on this road trip CD he made us and played it to death.” He smiled slightly at the memory. “He always refused to admit he didn’t actually know the words. He said he just preferred making up his own. He’d mumble his way through most of it. And then when the chorus came on, he’d belt it out so loud we couldn’t hear the music.” His smile fell. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the song, and I guess…” He trailed off, not really knowing how to describe what had just happened. He felt Liam’s leg touch his and looked over.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He looked away again. “And of course Father’s Day is this weekend, which every store and website in the world has felt the need to remind me of all month.” Sometimes, he felt like June was the worst month. No matter how many times Camila insisted the opposite.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said again.

He nodded. “It’s fine. Um, usually my mom and Elena go out and do something for it.”

“What about you?”

“I usually stay in my room all day and try to pretend like it’s not happening.” The key word being ‘try.’ It didn’t really work very well.

“Oh. Well, if you need a distraction or something, maybe you and I could do something together?”

Bobby looked at him. “Really?”

Liam shrugged. “Yeah, if you want.”

He smiled at Liam. “Yeah, that’d be chill.”

“We could also maybe do something right now. If you want. Maybe go somewhere that’s not Danny’s garage?”

Bobby smiled and nodded. “Yeah, ok.”

The two of them left Danny’s house, going through the front door and not even bothering to say goodbye to anyone. They could text them some excuse later. For now, video games and junk food at Liam’s grandmas’s sounded like much more fun than a party in Danny’s garage.

Bobby heard someone ring the doorbell and went downstairs to see his mom had already answered it. “Sorry Liam, I don’t think Bobby’s really in the mood to have friends over today.”

Right, he knew he’d been forgetting something. Telling his mom. “Actually, I invited him.”

His mom turned and looked at him in surprise. “Really?” He nodded at her. “So what’s the plan today, boys?”

“It’s a surprise, actually,” Liam answered her before turning to Bobby. “But make sure to grab your swim suit.”

Bobby smiled and rolled his eyes. “You know, that kind of ruins the surprise,” he pointed out before turning to run back upstairs.

When he came back downstairs, Bobby found his mom, sister, and Liam in the kitchen eating donuts. “You ready to go?”

Liam nodded and stood up, and Bobby grabbed a donut to go before the two of them left.

“Don’t forget sunscreen!” His mom called after them. He gave her a thumbs up to let her they’d heard her but didn’t bother turning around to respond as they walked out the door.

Bobby and Liam spent their morning swimming in Liam’s grandma’s pool, which they basically had to themselves the whole time. They swam and did cannonballs and joked around and laughed and not once did Bobby think about what day it was. After a couple hours, they got tired and went inside for lunch. Liam’s grandma insisted that they had to wait at least an hour after eating before getting back in the pool, so they started playing video games, which turned into much longer than an hour.

“Hey, do you want ice cream?” Liam asked after a while.

“I never don’t want ice cream.”

Liam smiled and paused the game. “Come on.”

They walked down to a nearby ice cream shop, which was very crowded because, you know, summer in Florida. And they were having some kind of Father’s Day special. Because of course they were. Bobby did his best to ignore it as they got their ice cream and walked outside with it.

“Hey man, I’m sorry. I didn’t think-”

“It’s chill.” Bringing attention to it only made it worse.

Liam nodded, and they started walking. They went to the park and found an empty bench to sit on and finish their ice cream. Bobby watched in the distance as a dad played catch with his son.

“Maybe going out wasn’t the best idea.”

Bobby just shrugged and looked down at his ice cream. They sat in silence for a bit as Bobby got lost in his thoughts. He knew Liam was waiting for him to say something, not pushing but making sure Bobby knew he was there for him. He finished his ice cream and stared down at the empty container. He felt their legs pressed up against each other, despite the fact that there was plenty of room on the bench.

“It just hurts sometimes, you know?” He felt Liam turn to look at him, but he didn’t look up. “Usually, I’m fine, but sometimes it just kind of hits me all at once. And sometimes I wonder if it will ever get better. Like, I  _ know _ it does. Because it _ has _ . For a while there I couldn’t even bring myself to play tennis. It still makes me think of him, but it doesn’t make me sad anymore. But sometimes, something will just come out of nowhere and remind me of him. Like, he couldn’t come to my middle school graduation, and I wasn’t expecting that to hurt so much. Like, I know a middle school graduation isn’t that big of a deal, but it made me realize he won’t be there when I graduate high school or college or get married or any of that crap. And I’ll never get to tell him…” He cut himself off as he realized what he was about to say.

“Tell him what?”

Bobby shook his head. “Nothing. Anything. I don’t know.”

If Liam didn’t buy that, he didn’t say anything about it. “I’m sorry.”

Bobby finally turned his head to look at Liam, who was giving him this sad look, not quite pity, more like concern and something else that Bobby couldn’t quite figure out. He gave Liam a small smile and looked away again. “Thanks. For being here and stuff. You’re really easy to talk to for some reason.”

Liam shrugged. “Hey, what are friends for?”

Right.  _ Friends _ . Bobby supposed he’d rather be Liam’s friend than not be in his life at all, but sometimes… He shook the thought out of his head and turned to Liam with a smile. “Yeah.”


End file.
